Carter Confirms JSF Unit Price Nearly Doubled | AVIATION WEEK
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Carter Confirms JSF Unit Price Nearly Doubled
The average per unit cost of the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has substantially increased, from $50 million to up to $95 million, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter told senators March 11 on Capitol Hill.
In today’s dollars, the per unit cost is estimated to be $112 million per unit.
The first development estimate was made in 2001 in Fiscal 2002 dollars when Lockheed received its contract for development, which is now estimated at $50 billion. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked whether Lockheed Martin knowingly “bought into” the program by proposing an unrealistically low price during the competition with Boeing and later recouping the money through repeated cost overruns. This is a “pattern that would match that,” Carter said during the hearing in reply.
The average per unit cost incorporates the entire price of the program, including development, procurement and fielding.This massive overrun means the U.S. Air Force will notify Congress “within days” of the program’s “critical” breach of cost overrun limits included in the Nunn-McCurdy statute (Aerospace DAILY, March 3). This will trigger a mandatory review of alternatives for the program.
The figures presume a purchase of 2,443 aircraft by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Also, as a result of the 13-month development delay, the Air Force has again reassessed its initial operational capability (IOC) date for the F-35, which is now expected in 2016. Only last week officials said it would be 2015. However, Carter’s March 3 JSF acquisition decision memorandum updates the closure of operational testing to be in April 2016, prompting the Air Force’s new date. The Navy also plans to declare IOC in 2016. The Marine Corps still says it will reach IOC in 2012 with JSF.
Factors contributing to the cost increase include a weight-reduction initiative in 2006 for the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing version for the Marine Corps, delayed development schedule, increased labor and overhead rates, degradation of airframe commonality, reduced production quantities, increases in commodity prices (particularly titanium) and major subcontractor cost growth, Carter says.
It appears, however, that the Pentagon is eager to move forward with the program. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said last week that no viable alternatives exist for the single-engine, stealthy F-35.
Carter told senators that he had been proceeding with management of JSF since November as if it had already been in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. Measures taken to shore up the program include an extra $2.8 billion added to development, substantially lower production ramp up (which takes place in parallel with flight testing) and the addition of more flight test assets and software testing facilities. The senior program officer, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. David Heinz, also was dismissed, and his position was elevated to a three-star level